UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/unseen-text-messages-hint-at-carrie-johnsons-second-party-at-no-10-6rgthhcvl

It appears that there may be evidence for Carrie Johnson's flat party that was ignored by Gray and the Met. This was during June 2020, when indoor gatherings with 2+ individuals were banned.

This was the night of Johnson's birthday, with texts suggesting she had gathered staff in their No.11 flat to "wish him a happy birthday."Carrie implies in the texts that she was already in the flat with at least two men. The authors say she "used a very specific term to refer to the friends" - which probably means "The Gays", Carrie's previously reported nickname for a number of young SPADs.

Notable because No.10 repeatedly denied such a gathering even happened for months.

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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/unseen-text-messages-hint-at-carrie-johnsons-second-party-at-no-10-6rgthhcvl

It appears that there may be evidence for Carrie Johnson's flat party that was ignored by Gray and the Met. This was during June 2020, when indoor gatherings with 2+ individuals were banned.

will this get the tories to wake up and kick bojo out

It’s unlikely to be the tipping point, but it adds more fuel to the fire. Johnson has to lose the support of 54 MPs to face a confidence vote, and then lose the support of a further 130 MPs to actually be booted out. Meeting the first threshold is feasible - the second looks a lot harder.

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It’s unlikely to be the tipping point, but it adds more fuel to the fire. Johnson has to lose the support of 54 MPs to face a confidence vote, and then lose the support of a further 130 MPs to actually be booted out. Meeting the first threshold is feasible - the second looks a lot harder.

This is why I don't understand the (probably Labour wish casting) theory that BoJo will call a snap election and force the Tories to support him. It would just be an act of vindictiveness, when his own personal power is seemingly more likely to remain intact through winning a confidence vote - even though many past PMs would have probably seen the writing on the wall even after winning said votes and resigned.

It's almost certainly wishcasting, as you said. Most PMs with a polling deficit hang on for the full 5 years of their parliament (see Callaghan, Major, Brown) - aware that two years of certainty is better than a long shot at another five.

I can see how people could reason themselves into thinking Johnson would try it though. His willingness to suspend MPs in 2019, weakening his minority government, and then call an election amidst some very bizarre polling (remember that there was a 3-way tie between Conservative, Labour and the Brexit Party in the summer of 2019), has left Johnson with a reputation for gambling.

Furthermore, his recovery after partygate "round 1" in January, was due to MPs rallying round the flag after two events - first the defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour, and then the war in Ukraine. If Johnson called an election tomorrow, a similar effect would go into play, especially among vulnerable Red Wall MPs. 2019 showed us that independent candidates, who oppose their prior leader, tend to do pretty badly (see Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry etc). Embracing the party agenda, and hoping for the best would be the only option for most of Johnson's first term MPs.

To reiterate - if Johnson survives the summer, he'll probably cling onto this parliament for as long as he can. But as soon as parliament is dissolved, he becomes the only lifeline for dozens of his MPs - so the threat of holding an early election becomes a Sword of Damocles hanging over the government benches.

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Former Attorney General Jeremy Wright has joined calls for Johnson to resign with immediate effect.

Total number of MPs calling for Johnson’s resignation now stands at 25, per Sky News’ Tom Larkin, who’s doing a stellar job keeping on top of the letters.

Full statement here: https://mobile.twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1531249491239751681

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Former Attorney General Jeremy Wright has joined calls for Johnson to resign with immediate effect.

Total number of MPs calling for Johnson’s resignation now stands at 25, per Sky News’ Tom Larkin, who’s doing a stellar job keeping on top of the letters.

Full statement here: https://mobile.twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1531249491239751681

Wright was actually talked of as a future leader during the May premiership. He was possibly boring, personality and charisma free enough to have emerged as a John Major figure in another universe.

Huh - I missed that entirely. Crazy to think how many divergent paths there have been over the past five years.

On Wright in particular, I wonder what the appetite for removing Boris is like amongst former May ministers. I can’t imagine all of them are thrilled by the incumbent - but I imagine that if several of them moved at once, Johnson loyalists would immediately move to decry the rebels as merely “taking revenge for 2019” or something.

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Another one - Elliot Colburn, who's seat is uber-marginal with the Lib Dems (under 650 votes), has put his letter in.

I have to wonder whether going home for constituency surgeries over the weekend may have provided the motivation to get him over the line...

Source: https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1531270078674751489

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Another one - Elliot Colburn, who's seat is uber-marginal with the Lib Dems (under 650 votes), has put his letter in.

I have to wonder whether going home for constituency surgeries over the weekend may have provided the motivation to get him over the line...

Source: https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1531270078674751489

Another "some time ago" one.  I wonder whether many new letters are actually being written, as opposed to people who'd already written them going public.

I guess that is the question - it's worth nothing if there are no new letters. That being said, the fact that there is now an groundswell of MPs going public has to mean something - even if it's just constituent pressure.

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Another one - Elliot Colburn, who's seat is uber-marginal with the Lib Dems (under 650 votes), has put his letter in.

I have to wonder whether going home for constituency surgeries over the weekend may have provided the motivation to get him over the line...

Source: https://twitter.com/TomLarkinSky/status/1531270078674751489

https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1531275275056578561?s=20&t=LwkjoIzr6QI46ZQY6jWM6A
Is there any leg to this rumor, or is ElectionMaps just talking out of his ass?

I've been trying to get my head around this one. Most Westminster correspondents would suggest that this isn't plausible, as Brady stays pretty tight-lipped about the number of letters (and there were a lot of rumours like this in the month leading up to May's confidence vote).

However... We're in weird territory here. The rebels are clearly (despite their protests) coordinated, and there are a number of MPs who've confirmed their letters off-the-record to journalists. And most importantly - there's a real sense that Brady wouldn't announce the vote until the recall is over (both in fear of the bad press that overshadowing the jubilee would bring, and because not enough MPs would make it back to London in time for a vote, which is held within 24 hours of it's announcement).

To add to the confusion, Brady is known to phone up MPs to confirm that they want to submit their letter, both randomly, to throw them off, and then calling all of them when the threshold is met, to confirm that the requisite number of letters are valid. Once he starts calling more than 3 rebels at a time, then it'll be impossible to keep the cat in the bag.

Finally, it's worth noting that we're now at a higher number of public rebels than we had with Theresa May. There 20 public rebels when the 48 vote threshold was met, and we're now sat at 27 rebels for a 54 vote threshold.

So it's unlikely, but not impossible. Sorry that this post is so longwinded to basically just say "maybe", but that's all the context we've got at the minute.

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Another two critics

Nickie Aiken has called for Johnson to call a confidence vote in himself to “end speculation”, at the end of a long email to constituents that described her feelings on reading the Gray report as “incredulous and appalled”. Aiken’s seat includes Westminster, a notable council gain for Labour in May.

Dan Poulter calls for outright resignation, saying that misleading Parliament “cannot be tolerated”, adds that the question of whether he has submitted a letter is a “private matter”.

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Andrew Bridgen has re-submitted his 1922 letter. Says that while the initial stage of the Ukraine war made him retract his letter, “new revelations” have convinced him Johnson has to go.

A blow to the government, because he was one of only two MPs to publicly recant their letters.

Full statement attached to this tweet: https://mobile.twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1531321038470012929

Edit: Weird fact: this will be the fourth 1922 letter Bridgen has written. He wrote one against Cameron in 2013 (later retracted), wrote one against May, and then two against Johnson.

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Presumed leadership challenger, and Foreign Relations Committee Chair, Tom Tugendhat joins the fray:

"The PM put the governance of the UK at risk to a single, severe Covid outbreak. That is to say nothing of the lack of respect it showed for the British people or the Queen.

I have made my position clear to those who need to hear it"

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And most importantly - there's a real sense that Brady wouldn't announce the vote until the recall is over (both in fear of the bad press that overshadowing the jubilee would bring, and because not enough MPs would make it back to London in time for a vote, which is held within 24 hours of it's announcement).

Where does this sense come from? Rule-breaking obviously isn't beyond the Tories, yeah, but that in particular would go a long way to violating the spirit of Brady's role, which comes with no oversight except the 1922's confidence, & he seems like exactly the type who takes the role too seriously to not do something that may displease members, like sit on letters. (Not to mention, the ship has sailed for the Tories to avoid looking bad for spending the entire Jubilee mired in infighting.) I just think that it's as simple as he doesn't have the numbers yet, but will start placing the calls to confirm that he does just as soon as he does, at which point, at least one MP is guaranteed to ensure that it'll obviously then leak out to the press:

https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1531351074422067202
The "senior Tories" who talked to the FT estimate the number of letters to be in the low-40s right now, so in any event, Brady will clearly have the numbers no later than the Tories getting absolutely rekt yet again in the upcoming by-elections.

Calling a vote while parliament is in recess would be chaotic - MPs will return to their constituencies for the recess, meaning they are scattered from the Isle of Wight to Aberdeenshire. Most can easily make it back to London in 48 hours, but calling a vote in the evening for the following day (as per the precedent of the past two VONCs) would cause bedlam. Especially on a bank holiday weekend, and amid a historic level of disruption to aviation (EasyJet, one of our major carriers, has cancelled a myriad of flights, putting extra strain on an already manic week). The odds are that a number of MPs wouldn’t make it back, or when they did get back, at 1 or 2am, the first thing on their mind would be replacing Brady!

Beyond that, the Jubilee really is seen as that big of a deal in some corners, especially among the older, social conservatives who make up the party membership. We’re talking about the party that suspended Parliament for a week in order to celebrate it! Brady clearly believes in the rules, but I don’t think he would see it as incongruent to wait until Parliament was sitting again to inform the party and call the vote.

That being said - it’s still unclear, and probably unlikely, that he’s got enough - we really may be waiting until the by-elections.

Edit: on a specific source for Brady waiting - I could point to several articles, for Yahoo, the Guardian etc, but they all just say the same thing, that this is the expectation. It seems to be one of these assumed things, that an MP said to a journalist off the record, and has been repeated over and over.

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Leadsom’s position is annoyingly vague - no letter or call for resignation. But she’s one of a number of MPs who’ve moved from publicly stating that it was time to “move on”, to open criticism of Johnson, which shows how much the mood has changed in the past week.

She’s joined by a number of other MPs with similar statements on the unacceptability of partygate today (the five I’m aware of are Andrew Selous, Andrew Murrison, John Lamont (PPS to Liz Truss), Kate Griffiths, Mark Garnier), who’ve broken cover for the first time.

There’s obviously something brewing, but it’s hard to gauge exactly just how strong the sentiment is. Increasingly, I’ve got the sense that a VONC is highly likely, but that Johnson is still favoured - for now.

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In contrast to the vague criticism above, we have another confirmed letter. The member for Carlisle, John Stevenson.

While most rebels have come from either Lib Dem-Tory marginals, or Tory seats with landslide-proof majorities, Carlisle is typically a Labour-Tory marginal and with the exception of a strong 8,000 vote majority in 2019, typically has a margin of 2,000 votes. 

Full statement here: https://mobile.twitter.com/John4Carlisle/status/1531612657077436421

By Tom Larkin’s count - that’s now 28 public letters, with public critics of Johnson (letter writers, plus those who are just “concerned”) in the mid 40s.

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Is there even precedent for a monarch to refuse dissolution of Parliament? The only situation I could imagine this even being a discussion would be if Johnson tried to call an election between Brady calling the vote, and it actually being held (which would be brazen even for Boris).

If he survives the vote, he can do what he wants - if he loses the vote, he’s compelled by Conservative rules to resign as party leader (and would likely be forced out of the party, creating a vacancy, if he refused). And if he tries to call an election tomorrow, presumably before the threshold has been met - I struggle to see the Queen breaching precedent and refusing the request.

This is all academic though - Johnson is almost certainly just wielding the power his backbenchers gave him in March, to use an impending election as a threat against vulnerable members. It’s all a bit Book of Revelations “No man shall know the day, no man shall know the hour…” Only instead of the return of Jesus, it’s another round of bitter electoral politicking.

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Brief aside from the constitutional chat (which has been one of most engaging conversations on this thread in a while), to bring you a geographic visualisation of the Tory rebels (credit to @Viregel on Twitter):


A couple of clusters seem notable - one group of rebels in Labour-trending London, and another cluster in Cornwall and the South-West, historically a Lib Dem-Tory swing area. Furthermore, MPs from the devolved nations seem more disposed to stay quiet - unclear whether that’s due to political pressure, or a desire to keep themselves, and their slim majorities, out of the news.

And as a former resident (briefly) of Southampton, it’s interesting to see that the city, and one or two of its adjoining constituencies seem to be a hotspot of activity. I assume this is largely because local MP Caroline Nokes has been a strong critic of Johnson for a while (wholly understandable given her interactions with the Johnson family - awful stuff), but also interesting given the swingy nature of the city’s seats, it’s recent council history (swinging between Con and Lab control in the last few cycles), and vote for Brexit. I believe we have a local on the forum - would be intrigued to get his take.

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Lol at Boris Johnson and his wife getting booed outside St Paul’s before the Queens service.

I don’t think the Tories realise how unpopular he is.

I’m sure the Tory press will say that this is just the “London lefties” attacking our glorious PM.

But these are the sorts of people who queued for hours to see the Royal Family walk into a church, and are in London to celebrate the Jubilee. If Boris has lost that demographic, then I’m really not sure which group of Britons he’s supposed to appeal to.

I mean, “Royalists boo Tory PM” sounds just like the sort of headline that gets pulled from the archive when describing the last days of a government.

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Will be seriously amused if this is true:
https://mobile.twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1532737266203996161
Boris has almost nothing valuable to offer the members being mentioned, other than his resignation.

Also, it may already be a moot point. The article includes this:

Some senior Conservatives believe the target of 54 letters has already been reached, with one Tory source speculating that the total could already be as high as 70.

So indications are that Johnson is now looking at keeping the 180 votes he’ll need to stay in office, rather than prevent the vote.

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A couple more Tory critics trickled out over the Jubilee week:
Andrew Bowie (who sits on a 843 vote majority over the SNP, and was Theresa May’s PPS when she was PM).
John Fell, a 2019 Red Wall MP, who sits on the Justice Committee.
Dame Caroline Dinenage, former minister (with service at Education, Women & Equality,  Health & Social Care, Digital & Culture), who was reshuffled from the frontbench in 2021 by Johnson. 

Which means we’re up to 45 MPs publicly attacking Johnson for his conduct in Partygate, of whom around 28 have confirmed submission of a letter to the 1922.

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Adding more Cabinet ministers would require adding new departments to Government, at a time when Johnson has committed to slashing the civil service. And even adding more low-ranking ministers, or PPSs will be hard too, given Johnson has already swelled the ranks (the man himself has 4 PPSs!).

I think he’s planning to just make a bunch of empty promises about reshuffles, knighthoods and sending grandees to the House of Lords. Chuck in a couple of ambassadorships, some red meat policy, and potentially a commitment to fight one/no more elections if he’s particularly desperate.

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There’s some decent analysis in the Times article. But this little bit of backbiting might be the best quote:

If Johnson does badly but refuses to budge, a former cabinet minister said: "It is the job of the chief whip to decide what is in the best interests of the party and present him with a brandy and a revolver. The problem is that Boris would probably drink the brandy and shoot the chief."

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Reporters for the i and the Sun both seem to think that the backbenchers have put together a briefing packet to coordinate against Johnson. Includes recent polling, and cites the St. Paul's booing incident as an example of how badly Johnson's popularity has tanked:
https://twitter.com/RichardVaughan1/status/1533473550249693188

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Official release from Graham Brady:

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Any predictions about the margin?

My gut says Johnson survives the vote, but is permanently damaged by a close race, and large rebellious contingent. Removing him isn’t out of the question, but still feels like an uphill effort, given how many MPs are on the ministerial payroll, owe their seats to him from 2019, or both. 

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Here we go…
https://mobile.twitter.com/Jeremy_Hunt/status/1533748389891940352